And thanks, Dave, for adding such good points to the discussion!
I might add that Dave was one of the first Board members of BIDA
(Boston Intergenerational Dance Advocates), a group that has done an
amazing job of promoting various community aspects at their monthly
dance. I encourage folks to look at their web site. It is amazing what
a group can accomplish when they have common goals and objectives!
http://bidadance.org/faq.html
Linda
On Jan 17, 2013, at 2:34 PM, Dave Casserly wrote:
Thanks, Ron, for bringing up a different aspect of this issue.
I don't book ahead, either, and mostly dance in communities where it
is
quite common to do so.
I've noticed that when there are large gender disparities, some people
still end up dancing every dance with somebody of their preferred
gender,
while the same few people end up without partners consistently.
Callers
and organizers often, in my community at least, stress to new
dancers that
they should partner with a different person every time, and that they
should feel free to ask anybody and everybody to dance, etc. I
don't think
this approach is the right one.
When there is a gender disparity at a dance where most dancers
prefer to
dance with somebody of the opposite gender, there is a math
problem. Some
people will have to sit out dances or dance with people of their own
gender
throughout the night. Often, those people tend to be the people who
do not
book ahead and are less competitive about immediately finding
partners. I
do not think our solutions as callers and organizers should be aimed
at
those people. Instead, I think we should aim any solutions at the
people
who dance with those of the opposite gender every single dance, and
do not
sit out the entire night. Those are the people who are most
competitive
about partnering and book ahead the most.
So when I see large gender disparities, as a dancer, I personally
ask my
male friends who book ahead and are the cool, hip, dancers to dance
(that
is, if there are more men than women, which is common in my local
dance).
Or I even see if they'd like to sit out and chat with me for a dance
or
two. In my view, there should be an even distribution of people who
sit
out or dance with somebody who is not of their preferred gender to
dance
with. The way to do that is to target the people who are dancing
every
dance with somebody of the opposite gender, not to target the people
who
might be more community-oriented and are less competitive about
partnering.
I know it's a bit awkward as a caller or organizer to ask certain
dancers
not to dance a dance, or something along those lines. I do think
it's ok
to point out to the crowd that, look, there's more men here than
there are
women (or vice versa), so, if you've danced every dance so far with a
woman, try to dance one of the next couple with a man. But whatever
the
caller does, I don't think it's productive to say things that imply
that
it's the fault of the dancers who are community-minded enough to sit
out a
dance that they should be the ones getting more competitive about
finding
partners. Targeting comments only at the newcomers' session makes
no sense
to me. In the dances I've been at, it's the experienced, popular
dancers
who are not being community-minded and book ahead all of their
dances with
people of their preferred gender, not the newcomers.
-Dave
On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 2:05 PM, Ron T Blechner
<contra...@gmail.com> wrote:
You know, I just realized, regarding the "sidelines" discussion ...
no
one's yet mentioned "booking ahead". In the context of
getting-new-dancers-partners, I thought it might deserve its own
thread.
Simply put: Booking ahead is a big threat to including new and/or
infrequent dancers.
When I was a newer dancer, and finally getting known as a fun dance
partner
with enough people, there was the inevitable "I want to dance with
all my
friends!" tendency that most newer dancers get. I booked ahead,
sometimes
two dances ahead. I never booked *all* of my dances for the night,
and I
did seek out and dance with people I didn't normally, on a regular
basis.
Still, once I reflected upon it, it limited my dance partners
somewhat.
I cut down to only booking "next dance". Then I cut down the number
of
times in a night that I do that. Now, I will never book ahead as a
rule,
but allow exceptions, usually for out-of-towners that I don't get
to see
often, or a dancer that I simply haven't had the chance to dance
with for
several weeks. I've found that I don't sit out any more often, I'm
still
dancing with friends for about half my dances in the evening, and I'm
having just as much fun. At the same time, I don't have to worry
about
remembering who I booked, nor about offending anyone by, "Sorry,
got the
next one booked already!"
Nowadays, I'm a pretty okay dancer. And there are some dances I can
walk
into, and people are super-friendly and I have no problem finding a
partner. Yeah, me being a kilt-wearing, name-button-sporting dancer
with
decent dance shoes usually is an extra tip-off to people, too, in
the same
way that if I saw a lady walk in that I didn't know, but she was
wearing a
big multi-colored twirly shirt and dance shoes, I'd probably assume
she
would be a good dance partner.
But... there are dances where it's difficult to find partners if
you don't
know anyone. And then for introverts (which makes up a surprisingly
high
percentage of the contra dance community), it's an even more
difficult
task. When a dance finishes, and you blink, and everyone's
partnered and
lined up within 30 seconds ... you know it. People have to be booking
ahead.
Frankly, booking ahead can be viewed by new dancers as unfriendly
behavior.
At the head of my list of dance values is that contra is meant to
be a
community dance. I believe that booking ahead, more than a few
times in an
evening, is contradictory to this primary value.
If I had to speculate, I would hypothesize:
1. Dance organizers are very aware of who does this at their dances,
already.
2. Dance organizers are afraid to speak up about it, because
they're afraid
of scaring off their "cool, hip dancers".
3. This can't possibly be a new problem. Haven't there been good
solutions
to this in the past? Haven't there been dances that have realized
they're
exclusive, and wanted to change, and successfully done so? What
approaches
have they taken that are successful?
4. A dance community has to *want* to change this. They need to state
"inclusion of new dancers" as a value that they hold high.
I don't have a solution, but I do think that this ought to be a
priority
discussion with dance organizers and callers.
Also, I'm optimistic that even one good dancer changing their
behavior, and
clearly stating *why* they stop booking ahead, can have a strong
influence
on other dancers. It was a couple of other dancers stating that they
stopped booking ahead at all that made me really reconsider my own
booking
ahead; when I tell people that I don't book ahead, I have had some
good
discussions stem from it, and I think I may have influenced a
dancer or two
in that they can tone down how often they book ahead.
In dance,
Ron
http://contradances.tumblr.com
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